"A couple serving probation for the 2009 death of their toddler after they turned to prayer instead of a doctor could face new charges now that another son has died."

Can someone in America please explain to me why their children weren't taken away in the first place?

"Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact." - Carl Sagan

This is the response of the defenders of Sparta to the Commander of the Roman Army: "If you are a god, you will not hurt those who have never injured you. If you are a man, advance - you will find men equal to yourself. And women.

Because the world isn't fair. If you have a system in which children are taken from their parents for being subjected to uncommon parenting routines (e.g., opting for religious faith over Western medicine), you'll probably end up with children taken from "good" parents on the basis of some weird, unpredictable parenting anomaly. I would say here what I said in the debate over the FDA--some people will die because drugs were delayed, and some will die because snake oil was brought to market. Similarly, children are either going to be taken from their parents on dubious grounds or left in the care of negligent or ignorant parents--debates like these are not one-sided, nor should we want them to be, particularly when, at least in this thread, the operative methodology relies on pointing to isolated (but salient) examples of parenting mistakes. I think the larger mistake would be to go into crisis mode, or, if you like, the "something needs to be done!" mentality. The righteous anger of a collective conscience is not a substitute for careful debate over policy, and it would be an unforgivable error to found our legal arguments on upsetting stories in the news.